The Progress of American Influence in South Vietnam during the 1950s*

Abstract

Replacing France will surely become a reference work for the historiography of the Indochina wars, not only for its undeniable scholarly contribution but for the richness of its sources, which are drawn from France and Great Britain as well as the United States. The work offers a perceptive analysis of the birth and the disturbances of the Franco-American alliance, as well as of the origins of the American commitment in Vietnam. Above all, Kathryn Statler has developed a long-neglected dimension—the economic and cultural field of the relationship—one that has only recently become a subject of French historiography of Indochina's decolonization. The book, which is divided into three sections, uses a chronological framework that allows the reader to follow the ten years in which the United States managed to substitute its influence and trusteeship in place of the French in South Vietnam. Statler begins her study by an examination of the years 1950–1954 (pp. 15–114), analyzing French efforts to attract the support and help of the United States by exploiting—with a blend of sincerity and cynicism—the rhetoric of the Cold War. Her research strengthens Mark Lawrence's conclusions on the decisive role French and British hawks played in the Truman administration's decision to provide political, military, and financial aid to the French war effort in Indochina after the 1949 Elysée Accords (pp. 16–38).1 It shows the progression of the American influence in Vietnam through the proliferation of agencies and personnel during the early fifties and the subsequent first French expressions of the fear of being replaced by the Americans (pp. 39–44). Although numerous studies have covered this subject,2 Statler's work cleverly analyzes the contradictions of the Franco-American alliance, linked with the dynamics of decolonization, the Cold War, and European reconstruction (European Defense Community–EDC), as well as the growing tensions that led to the failure to establish a common strategy (pp. 44–84). The highly visible split between Paris and Washington at the time of the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the negotiating of the Geneva Accords, and the EDC crisis is also developed with many interesting details (pp. 85–114).